DETAILED ACTION
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on December 09, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding the objections to the drawings, Applicant’s arguments on page 1 of the remarks have been fully considered by the examiner. The examiner respectfully disagreed that the drawings meet the requirements of 37 CFR 1.84. According to 37 CFR 1.84(o) and 37 CFR 1.84(p), and backed by MPEP 608.02, the drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims, such as a first connector type recited in claim 8, and a second connector type recited in claim 12. Further, the block elements (115 and 175) in Figures 1 and 5 are deemed crucial to the invention as claimed. Therefore, to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p), the applicant must add a reference character to the elements and describe them in the specification.
Applicant’s arguments, see page 1 of the remarks, filed on December 09, 2025, with respect to the claim objections have been fully considered and are persuasive. The objection of claims 4, 5, 8-14, and 17-20 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see page 1 of the remarks, filed on December 09, 2025, with respect to the rejections under 35 U.S.C. §112(b) have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claims 8-14 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 2 and 3, filed December 09, 2025, with respect to the rejections of claims 1-3, 8-10, and 15-17 rejected under 35 U.S.C. §102 and claims 4-5, 11-12, and 18 rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Zerbe et al. (US 8,861,667 B1).
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because the block pertaining elements (115 and 175) shown in both Figures 1 and 5 need to have descriptive labels in conformance with 37 CFR 1.84(n), 1.84(o), and/or 1.84(p). For example, a descriptive label of “Connector” should be inserted into Figure 1 to properly describe element (115). Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Therefore, the “decision feedback equalizer (DFE) recited in claims 7 and 14 must be shown or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
Paragraph [0044], line 8, “a dynamic feedback equalizer (DFE)” should be “a decision feedback equalizer (DFE)”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Objections
Claims 7 and 18-20 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 7, line 4, “the feedback is provided via the isolator or a second isolator” is suggested change to “the feedback is provided via a second isolator”. For example, as shown in Figure 5 and described in the specification, the feedback signal (520) from the EOM (510) feedback to the equalizer (120) is via the top (second) isolator only.
Line 2 of both claims 18 and 19, the word “includes” should be “further includes”.
Line 2 of claim 18, “a serializer to obtain” should be “a serializer configured to obtain”.
Claim 20, lines 3-4, “via the isolator formed by the first isolator portion and the second isolator portion or via a second isolator” is suggested change to “via a second isolator” for the similar reason stated in claim 7 above.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1-3, 8-10, and 15-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zerbe et al. (US 8,861,667 B1), hereinafter “Zerbe” in view of Ragonese et al. (US 2018/0062678 A1), hereinafter “Ragonese”.
Zerbe illustrates a communication system (117) in Figure 3 comprising: an equalizing transmitter (115) and an equalizing receiver (116) coupled to one another via a high-speed signal path (122); and a controller (141) coupled to the equalizing transmitter (115) and the equalizing receiver (116) via relatively low-speed signal paths 142A and 142B, respectively. The equalizing transmitter (115) includes a transmit shift register (124), an output driver (121), and a transmit equalizer (129). The equalizing receiver (116) includes a sampling circuit (123), a buffer (132), a tap selection circuit (128), and tap select logic (139).
Figure 31 illustrates an alternative embodiment of an equalizing receiver which may apply to the equalizing receiver (116) of Figure 3 comprising: a sampling circuit (451); a shift register (453); a clock-data-recovery (CDR) circuit (457); application logic (455); a tap data selector (461); a signal generator (462); an equalizer clock generator (459); and an equalization data source selector (463).
Regarding claim 8, Zerbe illustrates a communication system in Figure 3 comprising: a first connector type of a first substrate (equalizing transmitter 115 or IC device, col. 4, lines 54-67) configured to couple to a first device (not shown which generates the Tx data to the transmit shift register 124 of the equalizing transmitter 115); an equalizer (transmit equalizer 129) arranged on the first substrate to produce an equalized signal; a clock and data recovery (CDR) subsystem (CDR 457 of Figure 31) arranged on a second substrate (equalizing receiver 116 or IC device, col. 4, lines 54-67) to receive the equalized signal; and
Although Zerbe teaches in col. 7, lines 12-21 that the transmit-side equalization signal is used to reduce low-latency distortions that may result from any number of sources including, without limitation, dispersion-type ISI, inductive and capacitive coupling (which may be compensated, for example, by sourcing a pre-emphasis output driver within bank (131) with a value being transmitted on a neighboring signal path), and low-latency reflections (e.g., reflections that do not travel significantly further than the unreflected primary signal and therefore arrive at the receiver shortly after the primary signal), Zerbe fails to show or teach that the high-speed signal path (122) is an isolator configured to galvanically isolate the equalizer and the CDR subsystem and pass the equalized signal.
Ragonese illustrates a communication system in Figure 4 comprising a galvanic isolation circuit, such as the transformer (106 or 116) coupled between chip A including an equalizer (30) and chip B including a CDR circuit (172). Ragonese also teaches that a transformer acts as an isolator to perform galvanic isolation functions between chip A and chip B and generally falls within the scope to galvanically isolate the equalizer and the CDR subsystem and pass the equalized signal (paragraphs [0035], [0055], [0071], [0085], and [0095]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art as taught by Ragonese to modify Zerbe’s communication system by using a transformer or an isolator instead of the high-speed signal path (122) to isolate an equalizer from a CDR circuit that fits the definition of placing an “isolator” (the transformer) between them in order to provide galvanic separation while passing the equalized signal, making an additional isolator redundant.
Regarding the apparatus claim 1, similar to the apparatus claim 8, the claim features recited in claim 1 are similar to the claim features recited in claim 8 for the similar reasons stated in claim 8 above.
Regarding the method claim 15, similar to the apparatus claim 8, the claim features recited in the method steps of claim 15 are similar to the claim features recited in the apparatus claim 8 for the similar reasons stated in claim 8 above.
Regarding claims 2, 9, and 16, although Zerbe and Ragonese do not explicitly show or teach that the equalizer is arranged on the first substrate with a first physical layer that couples to the first connector type, and regarding claims 3, 10, and 17, although Zerbe and Ragonese do not explicitly show or teach that the CDR subsystem is part of a de-serializer and is configured to reduce jitter in the equalized signal to generate a parallel data stream, since both chip A and chip B shown in Rogonese communication system are operated as transceivers, inherently, they are known as PHY (for physical layer) and combine digital adaptive equalizers, phase-lock loops (or known as CDR), line drivers, encoders, decoders and other related components. See col. 1, lines 23-26 of the cited reference to Diab (US 6,541,878 B1). Also see element 134 of Figure 1 of the cited reference to De Bernardinis (US 12,074,961 B1).
Claims 4-5, 11-12, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zerbe in view of Ragonese as applied to claims 3, 10, and 17 above, and further in view of Pillai (US 2019/0020441 A1), hereinafter “Pillai”.
Regarding claims 4-5, 11-12, and 18, as applied to claims 3, 10, and 17, Zerbe and Ragonese fail to show or teach that the system further comprising a serializer configured to obtain and drive a serial output based on the parallel data stream, and wherein the serializer is coupled to a second physical layer on the second substrate that couples to a second connector type.
Pillai illustrates a communication circuit in Figure 1 for communications between a first PHY device (110) and a second PHY device (112) through a communication barrier (106) and teaches that each PHY device comprises a deserializer followed by a serializer configured to convert a parallel data stream from the deserializer to a serial data stream by the serializer.
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art as taught by Pillai to implement a serializer after Zerbe’s CDR circuit (457) of the equalizing receiver to convert the parallel data stream of the CDR circuit into a serial data stream for furth processing in order to overcome the physical limitations of high-speed parallel data transfer over cables and circuit board traces.
Claims 6, 13, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zerbe in view of Ragonese, as applied to claims 1, 8, and 15 above, and further in view of CHOI et al. (US 2016/010 5273 A1), hereinafter “Choi”.
Regarding claims 6, 13, and 19, as applied to claims 1, 8, and 15, respectively, Zerbe and Ragonese fail to show or teach that the system further comprising an eye-opening monitor (EOM) arranged on the second substrate between the isolator and the CDR subsystem.
Choi illustrates alternative communication systems in Figures 2, 4, and 6, for example, the communication system shown in Figure 2 comprising a transmitter circuit (TX 230) and a receiver circuit (RX 210) and teaches the RX circuit comprises an EOM (218) coupled to a CDR circuit (215) for monitoring waveforms of a particular spot of the SER/DES circuit (paragraph [0037]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art as taught by Choi to implement an EOM arranged on Zerbe’s equalizing receiver between the replacement of the high-speed signal path (122) with a transformer (isolator) and the CDR circuit in order to measure and report on the state of the eye opening to provide high-quality or a figure of merit for the signal’s quality.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7 and 20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the objection(s) set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 14 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Vad-Miller (US 2025/0330347 A1) relates to a data transceiver in Figure 1 comprising: a transmission side includes a serializer (102) and a transmitter (104) including an FIR filter (114); and a reception side includes a receiver (108) including an equalizer (116), a clock and data recover circuit (110), and a deserializer (112).
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Young T. Tse whose telephone number is (571)272-3051. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 10:30am-7pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chieh M Fan can be reached at 571-272-3042. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Young T. Tse/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2632